We will start our breeding in Oct of this year, we will be breeding around 140 ewes......
Right now ewes are on great thick and full grass pastures, We have learned over the years that
investing in enough land and always having enough thick green pastures keeps us from having to
grain them up a bunch before breeding, as we all know flushing and breeding healthy ewes aids in
the direction of ewes twining with good weights....our ewes will come off pastures nice and healthy
and therefore no flushing nessasary but flushing with grain for two/three weeks min before breeding is
good if you don't have tons of good grass, cut them off grain after 2-3 weeks....
So when they are bred (in with ram for 30 days) then a clean up ram will be put in for another 30 days
at this time they will need hay out as the grass will be brown by then, we round bale feed our ewes
with timothy/orchard grass hay for the first few month of gestation, then the last month and while they
are lambing they will be swithched to bales that will have alfalfa hay mixed in, this will aid in the milk
production of ewes, BUT there won't be enough alfalfa hay mixed in so we grain the ewes starting about
two weeks before they are due to lamb until about 3 weeks after the first lamb is born, we use shelled
corn and start them out with about 1 lbs a piece and work them up to 2 lbs a piece after the second
week of starting them on the corn, again corn is best for aiding in milk production (per Doc Kenndy from
Pipestone Vet)
The most important thing I think we do is provide a custom loose mineral, we have it made through
Southern States and we have the selenium raised and the vit A, D raised, we have found that this keeps
ewes healthier and all around better condition for carrying lambs and healthy ones to boot!
But let me say that when ewes are pulled off pastures and are being mated up with rams ANY ewe not in
good condition doesn't get bred, she is culled and goes straight to sale barn. Never start with unhealthy
ewes thinking that you can nurse her along and improve on her over the next 5 months until she lambs, the
time and effort you spend and in the end having lambs born to said ewe always being full of parasites or
runts/unhealthy just is not worth it...
We give all shots to ewes after lambing season and lambs are weaned off, the ewes get feet trimmed and
all shots and sent out to pasture, we don't do shots before lambing. There is nothing wrong with it if that is
what you choose to do but things like bo-se we don't ever do because that is all in our mineral and I personally
feel if they can have access to selenium year round it is so much better for animals....Again if this doesn't work
for your farm or operation then yes a bo-se shot can help aid the ewe from delivering lambs that won't have
or be born with white muscle disease, but in most cases they want you to do this I believe the last month prior
to lambing?
NOTE: very important NOT to feed ewes in the last 2 months of pregancy Clover hay, well DON'T feed the big
purple clover hay in the last two months of pregancy, the pathogens in red clover hay acts like a blood thinner
and when lambing in the winterish months it causes prolaspe and difficult birthing, we learned that the hard way
I am afraid....
I am looking forward to another herdie breeding and lambing as it is a great time of year, So feel free to keep us
posted and up todate on how things are going
